Doctor Copernicus Read Online Free PDF

the Timaeus says that the universe is a kind of animal, eternal and perfect, whose life is lived entirely within itself, created by God in the form of
a globe, which is the most pleasing in its perfection and most like itself of all figures. Aristotle postulated as an explanation of planetary motion a mechanism of fifty-five crystalline spheres,
each one touching and driving another and all driven by the primary motion of the sphere of the fixed stars. Pythagoras likened the world to a vast lyre whose strings as it were are the orbits of
the planets, which in their intervals sing beyond human hearing a perfect harmonic scale. And all this, this crystalline eternal singing being, this you call an engine?”
    “I meant no disrespect. Only I am seeking a means of understanding, and belief.” He hesitated, smiling a little sheepishly at the lofty sound of that. “Herr Wodka—Herr
Wodka, what do you believe?”
    The Canon opened wide his empty arms.
    “I believe that the world is here ,” he said, “that it exists, and that it is inexplicable. All these great men that we have spoken of, did they believe that what they
proposed exists in reality? Did Ptolemy believe in the strange image of wheels within wheels that he postulated as a true picture of planetary motion? Do we believe in it, even though we say
that it is true? For you see, when we are dealing with these matters, truth becomes an ambiguous concept. In our own day Nicolas Cusanus has said that the universe is an infinite sphere whose
centre is nowhere. Now this is a contradictio in adjecto , since the notions of sphere and infinity cannot sensibly be put together; yet how much more strange is the Cusan’s universe
than those of Ptolemy or Aristotle? Well, I leave the question to you.” He smiled again, ruefully. “I think it will give you much heartache.” And later, as they walked across the
cathedral close at dusk, the Canon halted, suddenly struck, and touched the boy lightly in excitement with a trembling hand. “Consider this, child, listen: all theories are but names, but
the world itself is a thing .”
    In the light of evening, the gathering gloom, it was as if a sibyl had spoken.
    *
    On Saturdays in the fields outside the walls of the town Caspar Sturm instructed the school in the princely art of falconry. The hawks, terrible and lovely, filled the sunny
air with the clamour of tiny deaths. Nicolas looked on in a mixture of horror and elation. Such icy rage, such intentness frightened him, yet thrilled him too. The birds shot into the kill like
bolts from a bow, driven it seemed by a seeled steely anguish that nothing would assuage. Compared with their vivid presence all else was vague and insubstantial. They were absolutes. Only Canon
Sturm could match their bleak ferocity. At rest they stood as still as stone and watched him with a fixed tormented gaze; even in flight their haste and brutal economy seemed bent to one end only,
to return with all possible speed to that wrist, those silken jesses, those eyes. And their master, object of such terror and love, grew leaner, harder, darker, became something other than he was.
Nicolas watched him watching his creatures and was stirred, obscurely, shamefully.
    “Up sir! Up!” A heron shrieked and fell out of the air. “Up!” Monstrous hawklike creatures were flying on invisible struts and wires across a livid sky, and there was a
great tumult far off, screams and roars, and howls of agony or of laughter, that came to him from that immense distance as a faint terrible twittering. Even when he woke and lay terror-stricken in
a stew of sweat the dream would not end. It was as if he had tumbled headlong into some beastly black region of the firmament. He pulled at that blindly rearing lever between his legs, pulled at it
and pulled, pulling himself back into the world. Dimly he sensed someone near him, a dark figure in the darkness, but he could not care, it was too late to stop, and he